


till the morning comes

by justdrifting



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24422350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdrifting/pseuds/justdrifting
Summary: It is this that terrifies J’onn about M’gann sometimes: that her safety is never her first priority. Never her second or even third, either. She is no longer the woman he first met, punishing herself with steel cages and bruised knuckles, but J’onn knows as well as anyone that some patterns are hard to shake.M'gann and J'onn talk properly about the fight in the DEO; a continuation of their final scene in 5x18.
Relationships: J'onn J'onzz/M'gann M'orzz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: M'gann M'orzz fics (Supergirl)





	till the morning comes

**Author's Note:**

> I found the way M'gann was written in 5x18 pretty frustrating; it felt like they just wrote her as ‘generic hero’ and ‘love interest’ rather than an important character in her own right. Like, she gave all the credit for Mars to J'onn and Malefic; her actions in the DEO fight scene were just so J'onn could have an emotional reaction in their next scene; and M'gann herself does not get to react to almost dying. All of this was actually quite in character, but it felt unintentional on the writers part because no attention was given to her motivations or POV.
> 
> While 5x19 pretty much entirely made up for it (bless those writers), this is my attempt to add some depth to M'gann in 5x18 (and also just to write M'gann and J'onn being soft because holy shit I love them and I've missed them so much). 
> 
> * Dialogue written “Like this” indicates it's spoken, while dialogue written ‘ _Like this_ ’ indicates it's telepathic. *

As M’gann settles back into the pillows with a sigh, J’onn, stretched out against her side, presses his smile into the blade of her shoulder. Her fingers glide slowly up his spine while he lets his lips travel lazily along her collarbone, to the base of her throat. He’s just starting downwards when M’gann stills him with her hand against the back of his neck, gently guiding his head down to rest against the centre of her chest. She brushes a kiss to the crown of his head, and J’onn can feel the way her lips curve up. Her hand finds his scalp, fingers starting to twist through his hair aimlessly. It's instantly soothing, and he relaxes into her, breathing her in, his ear pressed to her sternum as he listens to her heartbeat gradually slow.

M’gann appears content, pliant and relaxed beneath him. J’onn has so rarely known this sort of peace for her; is far more accustomed to her defensiveness and anxiety and the ever-present shadow of her guilt. He wants this feeling for her always; is grateful to be the one who can coax it out of her – just the two of them now in the quiet security of his bedroom.

With his ear resting directly over M’gann’s heart, J’onn tries to let its steady, sure beat soothe him. But now that they are still for the first time since he had given voice to his fear, J’onn can’t keep his mind from spiralling back to the fight in the DEO and those long, awful moments that had rattled him far more than he could have anticipated.

The warm brown skin over M’gann’s chest is entirely smooth and unblemished, leaving no evidence of the damage that had been wreaked upon it only hours earlier. But, pressed up against her now, J’onn can sense the terrible bruising still there, hidden deep beneath her skin – can almost taste it, acrid and metallic; blood pooling slow and sluggish – and healing far slower than he would like.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” M’gann says, the denial seeming instinctive, even as he feels a spark of pain flash across her consciousness.

J’onn presses lightly against her mind, reminding her he’s there; that he can see. “I know you’re lying.”

M’gann huffs a laugh, tugging at his hair playfully. “It’s fine,” she amends. J’onn catches the ‘ _I’ve had worse’_ that he doesn’t think she means for him to hear and frowns, far from reassured.

Suddenly conscious of his weight against her still-healing injury, he thinks he should move. But before he has much of a chance to do so, M’gann’s hand settles firmly over his head, holding him in place.

“Don’t,” she says immediately. ‘ _Stay._ _Feels better with you here_.’

J’onn isn’t sure how much he believes that, but he has little desire to deny her anything she asks of him – especially when her even asking is so very rare in the first place. Slowly he lets his weight rest against her again, pressing a lingering kiss to the soft swell of her breast as he settles. M’gann hums, seeming pleased, and resumes scraping her nails lightly across his scalp.

But J’onn can’t relax, not really. It’s late, and they’re exhausted, and there is so much they still have to face once morning comes. But his mind whirls, replaying that moment: M’gann, suspended alone in the air, baiting one of the most powerful enemies they’d ever faced; and then her cry and the staggering second-hand pain that slammed into him as she fell. Right next to Kara, who was so desperately hurt too, and J’onn hadn’t been able to protect either of them. The terror he’d felt in that moment, to see Kara and M’gann side-by-side, Kara disturbingly still and M’gann too hurt to move, and both directly in Rama Khan’s path…even hours later, he still feels sick with it.

“J’onn…” M’gann sighs. He can feel the peace that had settled over her start to wane slightly, and wishes he were able to let this go, for her sake. Wishes that he could be as unfazed by it as she seems to be; that the quiet comfort of this moment, right here and now, could be enough.

It just…it isn’t.

With an almost apologetic kiss to her skin as he moves, J’onn angles his head so that he can see her face.

“Why did you do it?”

He hadn’t asked it before. He thinks he was too afraid of what the answer might be. But, he thinks he needs to know now.

M’gann watches him carefully for a moment. Her hand in his hair has stilled, and she just holds it against his neck as she considers him. Then, without a word, she shifts, coaxing J’onn up momentarily as she slides backwards so that she is half sitting against the pillows of his bed. Drawing her knees up, she gently guides his head back down to her body so that he settles against her stomach, the back of his head cradled against her raised thighs. Staring at him, mulling over thoughts she does not share, she traces a single finger slowly along the shell of his ear down to his collarbone.

“It all happened so fast,” she says at last. “There was no time. And Kara… I know how much you love her, J’onn.”

J’onn takes the hand M’gann has let rest at the base of his throat. Slowly, deliberately, he presses a lingering kiss to the central bone of her knuckles, wanting her to feel it. “I love you, too, M’gann.”

M’gann’s smile spreads slow and bright across her face, and she shakes her head fondly. But there is something behind her eyes that tells him she still, even now, doesn’t quite trust it. Still isn’t convinced she deserves it, he knows.

“The world needs Supergirl.” M’gann shrugs. “I just knew I needed to draw his attention away from her, even for a moment. That was all that mattered.”

Kara mattered – of course she mattered; J’onn would give his own life a hundred times over for hers – but she is not the _only_ thing that does. It is this that terrifies J’onn about M’gann sometimes; this that makes him want to lock her in this room with him and not let her out until she starts to _believe_ in the value of her own life. A willingness to sacrifice for their cause is par for the course in the superhero business, but there is something in M’gann that sometimes seems almost too eager to go down that path. J’onn has known this about her almost since he first met her – certainly since her decision to return to Mars – but today is the first time he has ever really _seen_ it so directly.

J’onn runs his thumb gently over M’gann’s knuckles. “Please tell me you don’t do this sort of thing when you’re fighting on Mars.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“ _M’gann_!”

She laughs. It’s light and easy and beautiful; a sound he is still far too unfamiliar with. “Sometimes it’s necessary, J’onn. You know that.” And he does, he does, but he doesn’t like to think of it being necessary for _her._ “Besides, fighting the White Martians is hardly the same as fighting an ageless, all powerful god.”

“They’re still incredibly dangerous. Ruthless.”

M’gann’s eyes flash, suddenly hard in a way J’onn had almost forgotten they could be. “ _So am I._ ”

This, too, he knows. That first time they’d fought, once she’d thrown the first punch, his plan had been to subdue her and talk her down; until he’d found himself pinned to the ground, entirely immobilised and overwhelmed by her surprising strength. The second time…well, he has a suspicion that she might have let him win (‘ _It’s complicated_ ,’ vibrates, unexpectedly, through his mind).

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable, M’gann. It just scares me, how quick you were to throw yourself in Rama Khan’s path, to sacrifice your life. Like it was instinctive.”

The dangerous edge fades from M’gann’s gaze, softening back to the open warmth he has become accustomed to. ‘ _It wasn’t like that_ ,’ she promises. “To be honest, I thought I’d be able to dodge his attack.” At the admission, M’gann looks away from J’onn, her expression morphing into one of slight embarrassment. “I’m a bit rustier at flying than I’d thought. Haven’t done much of it, I guess.”

This, J’onn had not expected. “Really?” he asks, his surprise clear in his voice. They’d flown together plenty in the days that she’s been back, and he hadn’t once picked up on any sort of hesitation from her. “Do you mean recently, or…?”

“Ever.” M’gann pauses, her mind skipping rapidly back through her past. “Well, when I was first on Mars, I suppose. But rarely since I came to Earth.”

She’d hidden her insecurity well, and clearly overcome it when it when the situation required, but as J’onn carefully sifts through his memories of the last few days, he thinks he can see it. It’s there in the way that she hung back, just _slightly_ ; never more than a foot behind him, never enough to be noticeable. And in the way she stayed exceptionally close to his side – he’d liked that, had thought she’d wanted to be near him just as he so desperately wanted her there, the two of them finally a cohesive unit; he hadn’t considered that there might have been another reason for her proximity (‘ _Don’t be silly, of course_ _I wanted that too_ ,’ she interjects).

Now, he realises, she had always followed him into flight, never initiated, never taken the lead, hadn’t volunteered to assist him on his scans of the city…and such reticence was hardly in character for her.

“Why?” J’onn asks. There is such freedom in flying, such exhilaration and joy and beauty too. It is something he’d forgotten, before Kara had convinced him to take to the sky again. Now, he revels in it: swooping over the buzzing, full, lively city; a part of it but peacefully distant at the same time.

But M’gann only shrugs, still not meeting his eyes. In her mind, the door to those thoughts is firmly closed off from him. Her reasons are likely not too dissimilar to his own, though M’gann feels the guilt of her past differently than he does; manifests it differently, too. But he will not push, not now. They have come so very far, and they still have much further to go; one day, he hopes, she will trust him with even those secrets that she holds so very close to her chest.

“See,” J’onn says instead, “We still have so much to learn about each other. I can’t lose you.”

This is what gets M’gann to look at him again, compassion and understanding in her gaze, and her voice is firm when she says, “Well, I don’t want to be lost.”

‘ _Promise me you won’t do something like that again_.’ The thought is automatic, but as soon as he’s said it J’onn wishes he hadn’t, and M’gann sighs, rolling her eyes slightly.

“You know I can’t promise you that. Just as you can’t promise the same to me.” Their hands are still joined, resting against her stomach, and she squeezes his reassuringly. “But I will try very hard not to.”

He supposes, given their circumstances, this is the best either of them can offer the other. “Good,” J’onn says, and he smiles, squeezing her hand in return. “And perhaps we should try for some training in flight technique tomorrow?”

M’gann strokes her thumb over the back of his hand. “I would like that. If there is time.”

And here, again, this part of M’gann that worries him: that her safety is never her first priority. Never her second or even third, either. She is no longer the woman he first met, punishing herself with steel cages and bruised knuckles, but J’onn knows as well as anyone that some patterns are hard to shake. This, so deeply ingrained within her, is one he really isn’t sure she ever will. It is why, even if M’gann never learns quite how to put herself first, J’onn is determined to do it for her, whenever he possibly can.

“We’ll make time,” he asserts.

Finally, M’gann smiles again. It spreads slow across her face, bringing colour to her cheeks and light to her eyes. “Okay,” she says, like it’s easy.

It hardly ever is. Their lives – their world, their pasts, their losses and traumas – are endlessly complicated. But sometimes – times like tonight, when it’s just the two of them, and M’gann is back on Earth, laid out in his bed, his head in her lap and their minds so comfortingly intertwined, and _safe_ , even if just for now – sometimes, it really is.

“Okay.”

J’onn turns his head into her stomach, breathing her in. He kisses first the soft skin directly under his mouth, then lifts himself up slightly so he can trace a path across her abdomen and up her ribs. “We should sleep,” he says absently.

M’gann’s fingers tighten in his hair. “You’re going to have to stop doing that, then,” she says lightly.

J’onn doesn’t want to. Her skin is soft and sweet and so irresistibly warm, and he has spent so very long missing her that it seems almost impossible she is even here at all. But as he looks up at her, he can see that even though M’gann looks happy, she looks tired too. After what she’s been through today, he knows her body needs rest to properly heal.

J’onn exhales slowly against her stomach, and with one last lingering kiss above her bellybutton, he lifts himself up and over her. As he does, M’gann rolls onto her side, and J’onn takes the unspoken invitation to settle in behind her. Carefully sliding his arm over M’gann’s waist and up between her breasts, he rests his palm against her sternum, spreading his fingers wide above where her injury still lies deep in her chest. Though he can sense her cells carefully knitting themselves back together, he hates that, despite their many abilities, this is something he is so helpless to fix.

M’gann rests her hand over the top of J’onn’s, curling her palm around his knuckles to link her small fingers through his. ‘ _It really is fine, J’onn. By morning you won’t even know it was there_.’

He very much doubts that. This one, he thinks, will be hard to forget. But, she is still here – in his arms, in his home, in his life – and, as he presses his face to the back of her neck and listens to her breathing even out and her thoughts turn quiet and slow, his hand against her chest rises and falls reassuringly with her every breath.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't remember where the headcanon that M'gann doesn't like to fly originally came from, but credit to [these](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643703) [two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651599) fics for exploring it.
> 
> My tumblr is [justdrifting](https://justdrifting.tumblr.com/), please come shout about M'gann with me because I just have way too many feelings.


End file.
